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Opinion |
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MOSCOW , October 4, 2008 — Russia 's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday Moscow wanted to work with the European Union and the United States to stop piracy, as talks to release a Ukrainian ship off Somalia made progress.
" Russia will try to put an end to pirate lawlessness," said Sergei Lavrov, Itar-Tass reported. Read full text..
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NAIROBI, October 1, 2008 – The international maritime community has asked Russia not to use force to free the Ukrainian ship Faina seized by pirates in Somalia .
Andrew Mwangura, head of East Africa Seafarers' Assistance Programme, said on Wednesday that the use of force might put the lives of people at risk.
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KIEV , Oct 3, 2008 – The top Ukrainian official overseeing weapons exports on Friday denied that the former Soviet republic had supplied arms to Georgia during its brief war with Russia .
Serhiy Bondarchuk, head of state-run Ukrspetsexport, dismissed suggestions in Moscow that Ukraine , a close ally of pro-Western Georgia , had provided weapons during the August conflict.
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Hijacked Ship Linked To Sudan |
By Barney Jopson
Nairobi , September 30, 2008 – A pirate attack on a ship transporting military tanks off the coast of Somalia has connected two of Africa 's worst conflict zones by throwing a spotlight on the south Sudanese army's rearmament programme.
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WASHINGTON , Sept 30, 2008 — The US military's Africa Command becomes fully operational on Wednesday, but it still faces skepticism about its intentions as it seeks to provide security assistance to African states.
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IMF Extends 20-Million-Dollar Loan To Djibouti |
NAIROBI , Sep 18, 2008 — The International Monetary Fund has approved a 20-million-dollar (14-million-euro) loan to war-battered Djibouti , a statement said.
Six million dollars will be disbursed immediately to cushion the Horn of Africa nation against the food and oil price shocks. |
Ethiopia Urges UN To Deploy Somalia Peacekeepers |
| UNITED NATIONS, Sep 30 2008 – Ethiopia demanded on Monday that the U.N. Security Council deploy peacekeeping troops soon in neighboring Somalia , where a conflict has killed and displaced thousands of people since last year. |
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Headlines |
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-Dheere/Hobyo, Somalia, October 4, 2008 (SL Times) – Somalia's pirates have reportedly unloaded boxes containing anti-tank weapons to shore from the Ukrainian arms ship that they had hijacked off Kenya's coast about 9 days ago.
The ship was transporting T-72 tanks, grenade launches and large quantities of ammunition and heading to the Kenyan port of Mombassa when it was seized not far from its destination by Somali pirates on September 25.
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Somaliland 's Voter Education Program Begins |
Hargeysa, Somaliland, October 4, 2008 (SL Times) – The National Electoral Commission has launched earlier this week an awareness raising campaign aimed at educating the public on the importance of the upcoming voter registration exercise. The campaign seeks to inform the public about how, when and where to register as well as the exact nature of rules that are applied. Read full text...
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USAID Announces New Emergency Food Aid Contribution to Somalia |
Nairobi, September 30, 2008 – The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announces a contribution of over 47,000 metric tons (MT) of food aid to help the approximately 3.2 million people in need of assistance in Somalia .
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A Spirited Debate Between Biden And Palin |
| Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer
St. Louis , October 3, 2008 – Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin - marshaling folksy charm, brimming confidence and barbed attacks - faced down a crucial test to her political future in Thursday's debate against Sen. Read full text...
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By Ronald I. Spiers
October 2, 2008
This former foreign policy professional found the presidential candidates' foreign policy debate last Friday night disappointing. It was shallow, cliché-ridden and super-cautious. Sen. McCain's reiterated charge that Sen. Obama "just doesn't understand" this or that issue was just plain offensive as well as wrong. Read full text...
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He Had Trust Issues |
20/09/2008 16:26 - (SA)
Believing in his own intellectual superiority, President Thabo Mbeki could not accept that he was not trusted implicitly, writes City Press editor in chief Mathatha Tsedu
THE demise of President Thabo Mbeki, sealed this weekend at the NEC meeting of the ANC, has its roots in Mbeki's personality. Read full text...
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Somali Islamists Warn Western Aid Agencies |
MOGADISHU, Oct 3, 2008 – Islamist insurgents controlling swathes of southern Somalia have warned Western charities working there not to meddle in their affairs, stoking fears of increasingly hardline rule.
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Thursday 2 October 2008
Kenyan police were still holding Thursday a maritime official arrested Wednesday for allegedly giving sensitive news to the press about the hijacked arms freighter off the Somalia coast. Read full text...
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EU Set To Send Joint Naval Force To Somalia |
Andrew Spurrier and Justin Stares
Deauville , France , October 2, 2008 – Momentum is building towards the creation of a European Union navy task force for combating piracy in the waters off the Somali coast.
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ORIGINAL GANGSTAS OF THE SEA Pirates Grip World Attention!
Day three (or four, depending on which time zone you are in) of the tense international pirate standoff off Somalia is bananas!
.Read full text...
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OPINION |
Piracy Or Privateering? |
“Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.” -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Ali H. Abdulla
The current situation in Somalia is bleak and disheartening.
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MOGADISHU, Oct 3, 2008 – Islamist insurgents controlling swathes of southern Somalia have warned Western charities working there not to meddle in their affairs, stoking fears of increasingly hardline rule.
As when they ruled south Somalia for six months in 2006, residents say the Islamists are again providing much-needed security but also imposing fundamentalist practices in areas they have re-taken this year.
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By John Pilger
24 Sept 2008
In an article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the 'great silence' over the annual British party conferences as politicians and their club of commentators say nothing about a war provoked and waged across the world the responsibility for which lies close at hand.
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Ruth Shanor's Reflections: Sarah Palin And The Renewed Hoopla About Feminism |
| Sarah Palin, the Alaskan kitten with big claws, is launching the world into an updated Women's Lib frenzy again. Certainly the downtrodden, oppressed females of the world need a champion; but this little lady has never been where they are.
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Africa's Best Kept Secret |
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President Guelleh's Message To Somaliland |
In his Eid al-Fitr speech, the President of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Guelleh, said that (a) unlike the situation in Somalia, there is peace and stability in Somaliland, (b) Somalilanders deserve respect and congratulations for bringing about that peace and stability, and (c) the leaders of Somalia should learn from their brothers in Somaliland how to establish peace and stability in Somalia.
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We Must First Secure Somalia To Make The Waters Safe |
| Written by Administrator
September 30, 2008: The seizure by Somali pirates of a Belize-registered vessel which was carrying military arsenal to Kenya is a wake-up call to the international community.
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Q. & A. With A Pirate: “We Just Want The Money” |
| Somali pirates in small boats hijacked the Faina, a Belize-flagged cargo ship owned and operated by Kaalbye Shipping Ukraine, on Sept. 25.
By Jeffrey Gettleman
Harar-Dheere, September 30, 2008 – Sugule Ali, the spokesman for the Somali pirates holding hostage the Faina, a Ukrainian freighter loaded with weapons, spoke to me by satellite telephone today from the bridge of the seized ship.
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The World's Most Utterly Failed State |
| The spread of piracy just draws attention to the growing chaos on Somalia 's land
Reuters
NAIROBI , Oct 2nd 2008 – TIPPED off by friends in ports from Odessa to Mombassa, Somali pirates captured a Ukrainian freighter, the MV Faina, in the Gulf of Aden and steered it to Somalia 's coast.
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| Edna Adan Ismail on October 3, 2008 - 8:00am
A very distraught old woman came to Edna Adan Maternity Hospital in Hargeysa, Somaliland , appealing to us to help her transport to the hospital a woman who had given birth five days earlier and who still had the placenta inside her.
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Time To Rethink The War Against Terror |
Written By Shaheen Buneri
With Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States embroiled in a war of words and U.S. drones come under artillery fire from Pakistan, Taliban, Al-Qa'ida and tribal fighters appear to be no weaker that before the ‘war on terror'. The Media Line's Shaheen Buneri reports from the heart of Taliban country.
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Piracy in Somalia : Threatening Global Trade, Feeding Local Wars |
Briefing Paper
Roger Middleton, October 2008
 Download Paper here
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has more than doubled in 2008; so far over 60 ships have been attacked. Pirates are regularly demanding and receiving million-dollar ransom payments and are becoming more aggressive and assertive
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OPINION |
Somaliland: The World Arms Pirates While It Disarms Somaliland Navy |
By Dalmar Kaahin
The International community's imprudent strategy of giving millions of dollars to pirates for ransom while refusing to provide tangible trainings and equipments for Somaliland navy because of fears that such a move would be tantamount to recognition has resulted triple disasters—not only for the people of Somaliland, but also for the vessels sailing through the Gulf of Aden and for the region itself.
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Today's Capitalism Has Run Its Course |
| Bashir Goth
As the free market economy makes a free fall, all kinds of prescriptions will come to mind, including socialism. A Somali proverb says: "Nin buka boqol u talisay" (a sick man gets 100 advisers).
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Where Are Somalis From This?! |
Nima Ahmed
Alexander is a twelve years old American boy who converted to Islam absolutely willingly after his mother gave him books of all religions and full freedom to choose a religion for him self.
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